Loss of Inhibition
by Jehan's Muse
Summary: Gillette and Elizabeth, constantly arguing back and forth, develop a strange and strong bond when they realize that in the confines of 17th-century society, they can only truly speak their minds to each other. HET WARNING: Gillette x Elizabeth.
1. Common Ground

I've pioneered this pairing at the Pirategasm archive on LiveJournal, and gotten a small but very positive response to it. I've never seen anyone else write it (though I'd really love to--any takers? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?) and...well, I guess I sort of consider the pairing to be my OTP in a way others aren't, although it's (gasp!) het. Gillette/Norrington was my first and most cherished love; Gillette/Elizabeth is...my baby. I don't know what to call it. grin

Constructive criticism is always appreciated and considered--I really want to go somewhere with this fic, and suggestions would be most helpful.

The sense of someone creeping up behind her makes the hairs on the back of Elizabeth's neck prickle, and she whips around, wrapping the marine's jacket tightly around herself as if it might shield her.

Lieutenant Gillette. She turns her back on him again, seething. Mermaids. The bastard. "I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Gillette."

Gillette leans over the deck rail, head hanging like a condemned man's, pale as moonlight. "And I have nothing to say to you, Miss Swann." His voice is low, weary.

Elizabeth pauses, indignant, and studies him. She hasn't expected him to dismiss her so; she hadn't even expected to have the first word, but she does not plan to let him have the last.

She leaves him be for a little while, taking the time to study him. He seems so exhausted...sickly, even; the pallor of his skin is unnerving when juxtaposed with the fiery red of his hair. He is half-dressed, clad only in shirt, boots and breeches, wrapped as tightly in his own thoughts as she is in her borrowed coat. "It's two o'clock in the morning."

"I said I have nothing to say to you, miss." Gillette rests his forehead on the rail. "I know it's two o'clock in the morning."

"Why are you out here?"

"Why are you?"

He will not raise his head to look at her, and she knows as well as he does what the reason is. It does not please her as much as she thinks it should. Why does it give her such an odd twinge to see him in such a miserable state?

"It isn't your fault." The words burst from her like cannonfire, before she wants to stop them. He looks up at that, with a faint glimmer of hope, but just as quickly lowers his head again with a painful, bitter laugh.

"What would you know?" he murmurs. "You weren't there."

"What difference does that make?" she snaps. "It's my fault. I didn't tell you until it was too late for you to do anything. I should have told the commodore, not you."

He raises his head to shoot her a withering look. "And so I'm not only an incompetent fool, I'm an incompetent fool who can't even organize marines that are under my command and direct them into battle."

Elizabeth gives up. "If it's a fight you want, Mr. Gillette, find someone else to converse with. I've had quite enough fighting for today; I'm surprised that you haven't."

"I'm not trying to start a fight."

She would not have left, in any case. It is an alien and exciting experience, having an uninhibited, unrepressed conversation with a man--a respectable man. She has never been particularly fond of Gillette himself, but she loves the way she can let her words fly like bullets when speaking to him, and have him do likewise. Conversation with other men of her status is painful, measured out in small doses, always on the subject of such innocuous things as the weather, the latest high-society cotillion, the lukewarm tea. Conversation with Norrington is like walking through a graveyard.

Gillette has never been afraid to speak freely around her. He has never failed to address her properly and respectfully as "miss" or "Miss Swann," but his speech flows like water, or acid, depending on the subject--and the subject is never limited to the weather.

Perhaps this is why her father is rather less than fond of Lieutenant Gillette. He does not approve of men who speak frankly around young women. Nor does he approve of women who speak frankly around young men. As such, Elizabeth has had little contact with Gillette, as it seems impossible for them to be anything but frank around each other when they do meet.

Like now. "Do you want me to leave, Mr. Gillette?"

He turns away. "Leave if you like."

She settles back against the rail, leaning over it just as he does. He is taller than she is; he seems in more danger of falling over it. "You don't want to be alone right now, do you?" It isn't really a question. She does not expect an answer.

He gives one anyway. "Commodore Norrington blames himself for all this," he murmurs. "He blames _himself_, for god's sake. When it can't possibly be anyone's fault but mine."

Elizabeth ponders this. "It's partially your fault," she agrees, since he obviously wants her to sympathize. "It's partially the commodore's fault. It's partly my fault, for not telling you or him about it in time. It's partly Jack Sparrow's fault."

Gillette laughs humorlessly. "Let's all blame Sparrow. God knows it would be easier."

"It's true."

"I know it's true."

Elizabeth rolls her eyes. "Mr. Gillette--"

"Just Gillette, if you please. Or Lieutenant."

"It's only proper to call you 'Mr. Gillette.'"

Gillette raises his eyebrows wryly. "And we all know how concerned you are with propriety, Miss Swann."

Elizabeth appraises him for a long while. "Why don't you want me to call you 'Mr. Gillette?' I've always called you that. You've never complained before."

"It seems...incongruous, somehow." Gillette shrugs apathetically. "Such a proper address, from... _you_."

Elizabeth is oddly flattered, and he knows it. "Very well, then. Gillette." She thinks this over for a moment. Gillette and Miss Swann. "And you shall call me Elizabeth." It is only fitting that the one man with whom she can truly speak her mind should address her as befitting their odd and free relationship.

"I shall call you 'Miss Swann,' as I always have, Miss Swann. I've no desire to have your father set the commodore on me for impropriety concerning his engaged daughter." Gillette leans further over the railing. Elizabeth winces.

"Commodore Norrington addresses me as Elizabeth, and I shall address him as James. We are engaged to be married, and yet I've never truly spoken to him. James is not a man one can speak one's mind with, Gillette."

Gillette considers this. "I have never had a problem speaking freely with him."

"Or with me." Elizabeth grips the railing, on impulse. "You speak your mind with everyone, Gillette. Some despise you for it and some love you for it. And some envy you for it."

"Oh?" He raises his eyebrows. "And which are you, Miss Swann?"

Elizabeth turns, looks him in the eye. His eyes are as dark as hers, perhaps darker. "Some," she says, "despise, love and envy you."

"Ah."

"I don't despise you." She holds his gaze. "I certainly don't love you."

"You envy me, then."

"I suppose." She twists her hand on the railing, fretful. "I don't know. I've always spoken my mind around you. You seem to... invite it."

"As if you needed an invitation."

"It's easier for you to speak your mind. You're a man. There aren't as many rules dictating what you can and can't say, and to whom, and where and when. And besides, you're French." She isn't sure what that has to do with anything, but it makes him laugh. The same wicked smile he has when he laughs made her want to slap him earlier, but now it makes her smile as well. It is a smile as lovely as James' or Will's in its own right, a mischievous, devilish, contagious little grin.

"Actually," he says, "there are dozens upon dozens of rules dictating what I can say to whom and where and when, and the consequences for breaking them can be rather severe."

"And yet you ignore them."

"Not always. I follow them when I know I'll be flogged or court-martialed if I don't." He shrugs. "In a way, I envy you. You only have to answer to society, and if you break society's rules, there's nothing definite that can be done to punish you for it. I answer to the commodore, who answers to the Crown, and therefore I answer indirectly to the Crown, and if Norrington catches me breaking their rules it's his duty to see me punished by their rules."

Elizabeth is unsure what to say to this. "You like things to be definite, don't you?"

"It's a comfort. I live by logic." Gillette sighs. "Everyone wants what they can't have," he murmurs. It seems a non-sequitur, but Elizabeth understands.

"I can only ever speak my mind when talking to you," she explains, taking up the thread of their earlier conversation. "Never with James, or Will, or my father. And yet I address James and Will as such."

"I'm afraid I don't see your point."

"Call me Elizabeth," she implores him. "If anyone should have the privilege of calling me Elizabeth, you should. And I should address you by your Christian name, but I don't know what it is."

"Miss Swann--"

"There are no definite rules stating that you aren't allowed to call me Elizabeth, are there? You can't be flogged or shot or thrown overboard for calling me Elizabeth, can you?" Elizabeth clenches her fists on the railing. "You're laughing at me."

"You seem to invite it."

"Gillette, stop laughing at me."

"Renault." Gillette's laughter fades. "If you insist, you may call me Renault."

"Renault." She tests out the name. It's a nicer name than James, or Will. Or Weatherby. "Renault. It's French."

"You're very perceptive." Gillette exhales, and steps away from the railing. Elizabeth breathes an unconscious, audible sigh of relief, and he looks strangely at her. "What?"

"You were...leaning over the railing." She gestures lamely. "It looked dangerous."

"It isn't dangerous."

"It looks as though it is."

"I've been around ships since I was a very small boy. It isn't dangerous." Gillette leans against the railing, but not over it. He isn't in the mood to spite her at the moment. "I'm not in a suicidal mood, at any rate."

"I should hope not." Elizabeth shivers even in her jacket. She has seen and heard of far too much death in the past few days. "You looked rather dismal earlier."

"I was." He does not care for the subject. "Do you really think it isn't my fault?"

"Very little of it is," she reassures him. Gillette sighs with relief.

Their conversation has come full-circle. Gillette stands, and prepares to leave. "It's late," he says. "You should be asleep."

"As should you."

"Point well taken."

His eyes are no longer mocking and hostile as he looks upon her. They are contemplative, and somehow almost fond. Something unnamable and indelible has passed between them, leaving them open. Elizabeth lowers her eyes, realizing abruptly that she will never be able to speak so freely with James. Perhaps she could have with Will, given time, but she will admit that Will does not have a fraction of Gillette's wit or candor.

Something must be closed between them. She reaches up, resting her hands upon Gillette's shoulders, and seals his eloquent mouth with a kiss.

She has never kissed a man before, and it does not bring her closure. She can feel a question upon his lips and presses harder with hers to capture it before he can speak. He tastes faintly of mango, for a reason she cannot fathom and yet tries to. He senses the question and parts his lips slightly to crush it between their tongues. His arms are around her; the marine's jacket is suddenly enough to keep her warm in the cold night air. He must be freezing in that thin shirt of his, she thinks, and just as easily she can sense his response in the negative.

And just as suddenly, he separates from her, and pushes her gently away, cutting off her question not with a kiss but with a firm answer. "There _is _a definite rule against that, Miss Swann," he says. "Good night."

And before she can beg him to wait, he is gone.


	2. Scars

Part two, of three parts that I've written so far. I'll try to update sooner next time, if the fascists don't suspend my account again for not scrapping my best work before they do.

* * *

Two days after their encounter, both Elizabeth and Gillette suffer again from insomnia--Elizabeth haunted by dreams of epic swashbuckling battles gone awry; Gillette by dreams of rotting half-men who kept coming back for more punishment and dealing it out far more efficiently, and both by dreams of soft embraces and softer lips that are somehow more disturbing than the nightmares.  
  
Gillette is carefully avoiding her eye, and it annoys her. He has taken pains to stay out of her way for the past two days, and she finds it uncalled-for and rather insulting. "Good evening, Mr. Gillette," she says irritably.  
  
He sighs, equally annoyed at having been made to acknowledge her. "Good evening, Miss Swann." His tone does not invite further conversation.  
  
It seems foolish even to her to address him intimately as 'Renault' now, and she knows that there is no way in hell she'll be able to convince him to call her Elizabeth again. She presses on nonetheless. "The weather is lovely tonight."  
  
His jaw tightens; he knows all too well that she is mocking him, and it infuriates him that he is amused by it. "Indeed," he murmurs.  
  
"I must admit, I thought it might rain today, but it's turned out to be a beautiful clear night..." He does not bother to respond to this, and she holds back a smirk. "How are you faring, Mr. Gillette?"  
  
"How do you think I'm faring? Honestly, Miss Swann, you are the only thing that could possibly put me in a worse mood than I was in ten minutes ago." He rests his forehead exasperatedly in his hand, fiercely annoyed by her amusement. "Stop laughing at me."  
  
"You seem to invite it." She tests him with light teasing and a hesitant reminder. He rewards her with a wry, half-amused sidewise glance. "Are we on speaking terms again, then, Mr. Gillette?"  
  
"We're speaking, aren't we?" He will not look at her. His half-smile has disappeared again. Elizabeth's gaze hardens.  
  
"I apologize for my rash actions two nights ago, Renault, but I have given you no reason to treat me rudely."  
  
"I've always treated you rudely. You've never complained." He straightens, with a hint of a gleam in his eye. "Miss Swann, given that you're engaged to my commander, I think it wise that we stay away from each other and avoid temptation. I'm sure you'll agree."  
  
Elizabeth flushes. She knows that is why he has been avoiding her; it doesn't come as a surprise to her, but does he honestly think she will be so unable to control herself around him that she will allow herself to kiss him again? "No, I do not agree," she snaps. "If you think for one moment that I will easily give up my only source of enjoyable conversation, you are sorely mistaken. You may rest assured that I will not bother to try and kiss you again."  
  
"Very well, then." Is that disappointment? Only a brief flicker of it, if at all. "If you can control your bizarre impulses to kiss me, then I see no reason why we can't enjoy a pleasant conversation."  
  
Elizabeth feels as though her virtue has been dealt a blow. "And why shouldn't I be able to control them?" she snaps. "Do you think you're such a...a paragon of attractive manliness that no woman can resist you?"  
  
He laughs out loud at that, a surprised, derisive bark, unlike his usual rich, mischievous chuckle. "Miss Swann, surely you jest."  
  
"I do." She doesn't, not entirely. Gillette is no Will, but he is fine-looking in his own right, with his unruly copper curls and intense dark eyes, devilish smile and tall, lithe frame. He is far better-looking without the wig and fussily-embroidered uniform, but there is still a rather priggish attitude about him, despite his casual civilian dress. He carries himself too like an officer; his movements are always reminiscent of coordinated marches. When in uniform, he reminds her more of a toy soldier than a man. She can only ever converse with him when he is out of uniform. "You wear far too much brocade to be considered a man; you look more like a pastry when you're wearing that ridiculous uniform. It's impossible to take you seriously unless you're in civilian dress."  
  
"Excuse me?"  
  
She's gone too far; actually offended him. Her smile fades; the apology is on her lips, but she can't bring herself to utter it. He cuts her off before she can say anything. "Sincerest apologies if I don't go about in rags like your pirate or your blacksmith, but I don't see anything wrong with my uniform. I'm sure you'd rather I were a pirate, but you see, I've had enough experience to know that the law is the right side to be on, and I respect the customs and traditions of the institution that represents the law, even if they do sometimes make me look--as you so crudely put it--'ridiculous.'" He shakes his head; she blushes under the weight of his obvious disgust. "I fail to see how you can possibly retain your romantic notion of pirates, Miss Swann, even after all we've been through in the past few days, but if you haven't learned by now, I doubt you ever will."  
  
He looks her squarely in the eye. "I am on _your_ side, Miss Swann. The side of _respectable_ people who think of others and how their own actions will affect them, instead of simply raiding and pillaging and slaughtering innocents for no other reason than for personal gain--"  
  
"Not all pirates are like that!" she cries, forgetting the contrite embarrassment of only a few moments before. "Piracy isn't just about getting material things that you want without concern for others. Not all pirates care about that. Some just want...freedom." She is in no mood to try and recount Jack's entire speech on the matter, nor to repeat it to Gillette, who will not appreciate it anyway, but she tries to impart the gist of it nonetheless. "Some pirates hate being constrained by the rules of society...the unspoken ones as well as the written ones. They want the freedom to go where they choose and act as they choose without having to defer to people they don't respect, and sometimes they have to steal things in order to get by, but it's not all killing and looting just for the...the hell of it."  
  
"And 'these pirates' would be Jack Sparrow." Gillette sets his mouth in a firm line. "It doesn't matter what his motivation for doing it is. He still harms the people he steals from in order to live outside the law. He doesn't care about the price others have to pay for his 'freedom'--so long as he's happy, what does it matter if others are miserable? If he doesn't have the self-control to follow the laws that the rest of us live by, then perhaps there's something wrong with _him_, not us. And since his little character flaw happens to be harmful to the majority of the people we officers are sworn to protect, it's our duty to punish him in accordance with the laws that exist to help keep those people safe. And the law clearly states that we have to kill him." He leans further over the railing. "I'm sorry if you've grown attached to him, but I'm not about to break the law to release a known criminal who's just going to keep on harming honest citizens if we set him free. If that makes me any less of a man in your eyes, then I believe that's your problem and not mine."  
  
Elizabeth feels indescribably stupid as she opens her mouth with absolutely nothing to say. _Damn _him and his irrefutable logic. Damn all the logic that ever was. "Your argument is logically flawless," she says finally. "But there are _nuances _to things, Renault--things that aren't definite, but have to be taken into consideration nonetheless. Perhaps you're just too afraid to have to judge someone based on things that haven't been written down and clearly defined and spoon-fed to you, but the fact remains that Jack Sparrow is a good man, and...I can't tell you any more than that; that's all there is to it."  
  
"How is he a good man? He's a selfish bastard who steals from people for his own personal gain. That's not what defines a good man."  
  
"Maybe not to _you_," she snaps, losing patience. "I think you're a cold, cruel, arrogant, pitiless bastard, even if you are a so-called righteous man of the law, and that isn't what makes a good man."  
  
She doesn't think him cold, or cruel, or pitiless, or even so very arrogant. She only wants him to see the shades of gray between the black and white, to feel that things are right when they are right and wrong when they are wrong and not to know that they are right or wrong.  
  
But there are his feelings to consider as well. He tries so hard to be a good man, and by most standards of the term he is--honest, respectable, loyal to a fault, intelligent, dedicated to his duty. He's merciful to those who deserve mercy, isn't he? Perhaps he just doesn't feel that Sparrow is worthy of mercy...  
  
He grips the railing discreetly with pale, viselike fingers. "Do you really feel that way, miss?" His voice is deceptively calm; neither of them is taken in for a moment.  
  
Elizabeth bites her lip. She's hurt him again, this time in defense of a man she doesn't particularly even like or trust. Once again, she's gone too far in trying to prove her point. "No," she confesses. "I don't. But neither do I think Jack Sparrow is a selfish bastard." She pauses, reflecting on that. "Even if all the available evidence seems to prove that he is. It's an instinct, Renault--don't you ever have those? You feel something, rather than know it, even if it seems that it shouldn't be true?"  
  
"I've found that those are dangerous, and not nearly as reliable as solid, logical, supportable fact." He sighs. "My instincts are usually horrifically wrong. I don't trust them on important matters. Is that another thing that makes me less of a man than Jack Sparrow?"  
  
"No, that isn't it."  
  
"Then may I inquire as to what does?"  
  
Elizabeth casts about for something to challenge him, anything she can find. She is not accustomed to losing arguments easily. "Jack Sparrow...is an accomplished fighter," she says lamely.  
  
"Why, what a coincidence--that just so happens to be the way I make my living." His tone is exaggeratedly mocking. Elizabeth colors.  
  
"I mean real fighting," she snaps. "None of your lining up neatly with your guns over your shoulders, politely inviting the enemy to shoot you."  
  
"_Excusez-moi_?" Gillette, almost unsure whether to laugh incredulously or strike her, inadvertently lapses back into French in his anger. She edges unconsciously away from him. "You've got to be joking!" he cries. "You don't know the first thing about it!"  
  
"You're all more concerned with decorum and ritual and keeping your uniforms tidy than defending yourselves."  
  
Why does she insist on provoking him so? It isn't that she wants to hurt him; she regrets it when she hurts his feelings, but she feels such an irrepressible urge to make him angry. She wants to see him lose the self-control he prides himself on, see him abandon wit and logic for blind rage. It is curiously satisfying to see him stammering with incredulous fury.  
  
"Have you ever _seen _a battle, for god's sake? There's no decorum, no ritual! For Christ's sake, miss, it's complete chaos--it's nothing but trying the best you can not to get yourself killed. If you see a friend about to be killed nearby, you do what you can to save him, but all you can do is hack and slash at whatever comes near you and try to keep it up until something happens--a retreat is sounded, they surrender, you surrender, anything. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And when you're fighting desperately for your life, you don't give a damn whether your blasted _uniform _is clean!"  
  
He tries to say something more; words fail him and he gives up to lean over the railing again. Elizabeth feels rather faint. "There aren't any rules, then?"  
  
"Haven't I just told you that there aren't? There are only two rules I can think of, Miss Swann--don't kill the men on your own side, and don't run away. And some people don't even bother with those."  
  
Elizabeth closes her eyes, feeling her sense of order beginning to rather drastically reorient itself. "They're...more like...guidelines, then?"  
  
"Exactly." He scowls. Guidelines are not definite.  
  
Elizabeth exhales unhappily. Now that she imagines it, it makes a disconcerting amount of sense. She has never been interested in accounts of Naval battles, only in epic tales of swashbuckling, ingenious piracy--tales of men like Jack Sparrow, not of men like Norrington and Gillette. She has always imagined Naval battles to be rather like drills, but with actual gunfire; in her mind, they are always underscored by cheerful fife music.  
  
Now, she thinks of what must be involved in a true battle at sea. When two ships--any two ships--engage in battle, it is bound by laws of nature to be chaotic and messy and lawless, whether the people aboard the ship are or not. A battle between the Dauntless and a ship of the French fleet would be just as bloody as the one between the Black Pearl and the stolen Interceptor.  
  
"It's just as dangerous as piracy, then?" she says softly. He laughs.  
  
"Of course. If we survive a losing battle to be captured by the enemy, we're tortured and hanged. Loads of fun, I should imagine."  
  
"Dangerous even for the officers, then?"  
  
"Especially for us--they aim for the highest-ranking ones first. They aim for the commodore first, and if they can't hit him, they concentrate their fire on me." His tone is disturbingly matter-of-fact. "But in the heat of a battle, there's no such thing as rank--we all fight, and we can all die. You saw--no," he amends, "you didn't see, because you weren't there. The commodore fought right alongside the marines. We all fought without reservation. We do whatever it takes to defend the ship."  
  
There is unrestrained pride in his voice as he speaks of Norrington, and Elizabeth flushes, suddenly remembering just who it is that she is engaged to. "The life if a pirate just seems so much more daring and dangerous," she muses. "Perhaps because I've always read stories that glorify them."  
  
Gillette seems about to deliver a scathing remark, but refrains out of courtesy. He has never done that before, and she feels a rush of warmth that has nothing to do with her embarrassment. "You've always just seemed so _safe_, though," she says. "You, and Commodore Norrington, and Officer Groves--all the other officers I've been acquainted with for years. And when I was stranded on that island with Jack Sparrow...he showed me some of his scars. Horrible, almost disfiguring ones, some of them." She shivers at the memory, still as fresh as when he first showed her.  
  
Gillette turns to her. "What makes you think we officers don't have scars? We get wounded just as pirates do."  
  
"I never thought about it." She looks him over in a new light, wondering uneasily for the first time what scarring might lie under his clothing. "Do you have any?"  
  
"Of course I do. We all do. None of mine are particularly disfiguring or disabling, but I've been wounded badly enough before that I've been bedridden for several days because of it, and I do have a decent number of battle scars to show off."  
  
Elizabeth nods slowly, but she cannot imagine any of the officers with which she has been acquainted most her life being wounded or scarred. Their uniforms are all too immaculately alike to allow for any imagination of irregularity beneath.  
  
She has never imagined anything that might lie beneath any of those uniforms, and she blushes furiously crimson as the picture floods her head unbidden. She has only just begun to think of officers as men; it has not been long since she first began to think of men as sexual beings. Will and Jack are overtly, obviously sexual, sweaty and half-clothed and dirty and masculine. Norrington and his officers are too calmly composed and stuffily-dressed and pristine; she cannot imagine any of them even kissing a woman; it seems an incompatible and foreign action.  
  
And yet Gillette had kissed her, with a most uncontrolled, un-officerly passion. She had been the one to initiate it, and he had composed himself enough to push her away, but he had kissed her back.  
  
"I find that very hard to believe," she muses, and realizes too late that she has said it aloud. Gillette scoffs in disbelief.  
  
"You don't believe me? Am I a liar, then? Are you insinuating that...what are you insinuating? I've been making up stories about the wounds I've sustained in battle?"  
  
His control is slipping, and she's had her fun. "I never said that," she assures him, trying to pacify him. "I only mean that...I find it difficult to imagine."  
  
"Oh, am I a coward as well, then?"  
  
"Mr. Gillette!" she expostulates, throwing up her hands. "Why do you insist upon being so confrontational? I don't appreciate you putting words in my mouth. All I am trying to say is that I find it difficult to picture you or any of your fellow officers sustaining the same sort of scars that a pirate--oh, never mind," she breaks off. "I mean absolutely no offense, Renault. I believe you. I simply can't picture it."  
  
"Because I'm just not as much of a man as Jack Sparrow."  
  
"Gillette--"  
  
"I don't like being _patronized_, miss. I know perfectly well what you think of me." He shakes his head, and she fights back a sudden urge to put a hand on his shoulder.  
  
"I'm sorry." It is one of the only sincere apologies she can remember ever giving, and the ease at which it falls from her mouth surprises her more than a little. He nods in acknowledgement.  
  
Silence reigns for several miserable moments. Elizabeth casts about for anything to throw into the long, awkward pause. "Where are your scars?" she asks, and curses herself as a idiot for bringing it up again.  
  
Gillette laughs shortly. "I do hope you aren't asking me to show you, Miss Swann."  
  
"I most certainly am not!" She wouldn't mind. She feels another warn surge of embarrassment as she admits this to herself. "I merely wanted to know where they were. It strikes me as odd that you, of all people, are trying to restrain yourself in front of me."  
  
"You obviously aren't making any attempts to restrain yourself. One of us has to take the moral high ground."  
  
She wants to slap him, even if he is joking. She is only amused when he laughs, gracing her with his first true smile that evening. She hasn't seen him smile in two days, and it amazes her how much she's managed to miss it in that short amount of time.  
  
He is leaning perilously far out over the railing, and she actually does reach out to grab his arm and pull him back. "Don't _do _that. I'm always terrified you're going to fall over."  
  
He sighs, shaking his head. "Miss Swann, I flatter myself that I know a bit more about ships and sailing than you do, therefore trust me on this--it isn't dangerous, and I am not going to fall over the railing."  
  
He humors her, though, and does not lean as far out. After a short while, she joins him, leaning delicately on the edge of the rail. The conversation suddenly seems far more intimate.  
  
"Forgive me if I'm being too bold, but...what did you and Jack Sparrow do when you were stranded on that island all night?" He rolls his eyes. "I would have killed him if I'd been left there that long with him."  
  
"I conducted myself like a lady, as I always do. Have I ever given you reason to believe that I would do otherwise?"  
  
They share a laugh at that, gentle but unrestrained. It seems the opportune moment for him to take her hand in his, but the thought doesn't seem to even cross his mind, and probably just as well at that. "Tell me honestly what you did. I'm quite curious."  
  
"Well, I made him drink gallons of rum until he finally lost consciousness, and then I set about making an enormous signal fire. He's even worse of a scoundrel than normal when he's inebriated, I must say."  
  
"Aren't we all?" Again, the wicked little smile that never fails to cause one of those warm flushes. "You said he showed you his scars, though."  
  
"I made him angry when I suggested that perhaps the legends about him weren't true, and he showed me the scars to prove that they were." She cringes again in recollection. "They were dreadful, some of them. A great jagged one like lightning across the inside of one forearm, and two vicious bullet holes in one side of his chest..." She'd tormented herself speculating for hours as to what might have caused the jagged one. "Have you ever been shot, Renault?"  
  
"Not directly, thank god. I've been grazed by a few bullets, though."  
  
He contemplates for a minute and glances hastily about as if to make sure that they are alone. "Here," he says, and almost shyly rolls up the sleeve of his shirt past his shoulder, gesturing towards a raised scar on his right bicep. "That one's an old one, from one of my first battles as a young midshipman. There was a sniper on the other ship, aiming for the First Lieutenant, who I happened to be standing behind. The bullet missed him, grazed my arm and hit a marine in the shoulder."  
  
Her gasp is involuntary and audible. "Was he badly hurt?"  
  
"Not badly, though I daresay he has a nastier scar to show for it than I do."  
  
Elizabeth eyes the scar. It is deep red-pink, straight and smooth and dark against his pale skin. "It looks awful," she murmurs. Gillette rolls his eyes.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"No, no, I didn't mean it that way. I only meant that it looks as though it must have been dreadfully painful." She tries to be discreet in her curious examination, and fails.  
  
"It was," he says cheerfully. "But it was years and years ago. I wasn't much more than a boy. I think I must have been...sixteen or seventeen, I believe. Yes, seventeen. Nine years ago, then."  
  
"Have you got any others?" She tears her eyes away from the scar and looks back up at him.  
  
"Not that I'm going to show you." He smiles and leans back against the railing. Elizabeth pouts fetchingly and joins him again.  
  
"May I touch it?" she asks, after a few moments. "I've never felt a scar before."  
  
"It isn't as if this is a particularly interesting one," he protests, taken-aback. "If you feel you absolutely must, then go ahead."  
  
She hesitates for a moment. They are alone, her intent is perfectly innocent and it isn't as though she's never touched a man's arm before. Why it's improper for her to be doing this, she doesn't know. She reaches out and brushes her fingertips lightly over the smooth tissue, half-expecting it to wrinkle and tear under her touch.  
  
She is surprised both by the resilience of the scar tissue and the hard muscle of his arm, and notes it aloud. He shrugs modestly. "That just happens to be my sword-arm."  
  
Suddenly self-conscious, he rolls his sleeve back down. Elizabeth flushes and turns away, feeling like a harlot and realizing what a complete fool she's made of herself. Even Gillette knows what standards of proper behavior are. He must think her a whore.  
  
"I think perhaps we should both retire for the night," she says stiffly. "You're right, it is...it's not prudent to be...out here alone, not when I'm engaged."  
  
He glances up sharply. "It isn't necessary," he says, his tone almost pleading. "I don't want to be left alone out here."  
  
"Not even with your commander's wildly badly-behaved strumpet of a fianceè?" She cannot bring herself even to look at him, so humiliated is she. Conversation with Gillette can be every bit as intoxicating as Sparrow's rum, and intoxication always makes even properly-behaved people act like fools.  
  
"I don't mind it," he confesses. "You've no idea how refreshing it is to be able to have a truly intimate, intelligent conversation with a woman."  
  
"You're being horrifically bold, Mr. Gillette, considering that I'm an engaged woman." She is especially thankful now that she is not facing him; if he could see her face he would have noticed her smiling in relief. His exasperated sigh causes another warm little thrill, for a reason she cannot fathom.  
  
"Elizabeth, do you honestly believe I am going to let you play that card now, when you've shown so little regard for that fact that you've very nearly gotten _me _to disregard it?"  
  
"As evidenced by the fact that you're finally calling me Elizabeth, as I've asked you to, Mr. Gillette."  
  
"Renault. For god's sake, call me Renault. Don't torment me." He grips the railing tightly in exasperation. "You don't think it's horribly selfish of me, then?"  
  
"Do I think what is selfish of you, Renault?" She knows perfectly well what, and she is taken very much aback by it. Both Gillette's affection for her and his willingness to admit it so blatantly come as a shock to her.  
  
He shoots her a reproachful glance. "I won't admit it any more openly than I have already. You know what I mean."  
  
"I don't see how it could possibly be selfish of you," she says. "You haven't any control over it."  
  
"I could have prevented it if I had really wanted to," he mutters. "I would have avoided you, if you'd let me."  
  
Elizabeth almost laughs at that. "Why on earth would I have let you," she asks, "if I want the same thing you do?"  
  
"Elizabeth, for god's sake, you're engaged to my commander--"  
  
"And I don't care for him any more than he cares for me," she snaps.

Gillette laughs bitterly. "He loves you. Anyone can see it."  
  
"I don't love him."  
  
"That's of no consequence. You agreed to marry him. You're bound by your word, and I'm bound by my allegiance and friendship to him. The matter isn't open to interpretation or disregard."  
  
"I don't love him, and I will never be able to love him. That is of far more consequence to me than it seems to be to you, which is understandable--you're a man; you can propose to any woman you fancy and her father will likely make her accept you whether she wants to or not. And why wouldn't she want to? You're wealthy and high-ranking and that's all that matters, isn't it? Am I honestly the only eligible woman in Port Royale who would ever appreciate you for your wit and intelligence rather than your money and position--and vice-versa? Is there anyone else who would ever see us for what we are instead of what we could do for them?"  
  
It is more than slightly ironic, she decides unhappily, that he is the only person she knows whom she could say any of that to. He understands, she knows he understands, and he is being deliberately obtuse about it, and it infuriates her.  
  
"You are not an eligible woman, Miss Swann." He lowers his head and stares intently at the rail. Elizabeth wants to stomp her foot and shake him.  
  
"As far as I am concerned, I am eligible."  
  
"And as far as I am concerned, you are not." He sighs. "As much as I would have it otherwise."  
  
This last is muttered under his breath, but she latches onto it. "You admit it, then?"  
  
"I admit nothing." He stands and turns his back on her. "You're right. It isn't prudent to be out here alone together when clearly neither of us has the strength of character to resist temptation." His contempt for himself is rather more obvious than his contempt for her. "Good night, Miss Swann."  
  
"How does denying what we clearly both want count as 'strength of character?'" she demands. He turns on her, jaw set on edge.  
  
"How do you know we both want it?" he says. "Your alleged reason for utterly disregarding your engagement to the commodore is that you 'don't love him,' am I correct?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Do you love _me,_ Miss Swann?"  
  
His tone is so condescending that the question takes her by surprise and rather assures her answer even before she's had time to think about it. "No, of course not."  
  
"Nor do I love you." He speaks as if the very idea were a joke. Elizabeth flushes with wounded pride. "Therefore, I don't believe this discussion has any reason to continue further; your point is moot. Good night."  
  
"It isn't a moot point," she calls, stopping him before he can turn to leave. Dammit, he will not have the last word.  
  
He pauses, with a resigned sigh. "Oh?"  
  
"I may not love you, Renault, by any stretch of the imagination, but I daresay that if I had to marry an officer of the Royal Navy, I would certainly prefer it to be you."  
  
Gillette arches his eyebrows in the manner she has come to realize means that he is about to deliver a scathingly cynical retort. "Well, it just so happens that you _do _have to marry an officer of the Royal Navy, Miss Swann, and that officer happens to be my commander and friend. Now, if you'll excuse me." And once again, he is gone before she can stop him.  
  
She resolves that she will not let him have the last word next time.

* * *

Continuing with my previous rant...

How do they find all those rogue script-style stories, anyway? Do people actually report them? I didn't think anyone actually supported all their ridiculous decrees about what counts as fanfiction and what doesn't. You'd think people would be trying to fight the oppressive system by _not_ reporting stories that don't fit in with this pit's disgustingly narrow definition of fiction--not collaborating with the Fic Nazis.

I mean, yeah, okay, so part of it is in the interest of "population control," for lack of a better term--I mean, there are over 600,000 stories on this site, aren't there? Or there were, anyway. But don't they realize that it's the real fanfiction that's suffering? If they keep going like this, all that's going to be left is a load of godawful Mary Sues.

But what do I know? Most of my stuff isn't real fanfiction anyway. /extreme bitterness

This has been Musey in her Extremely Fucked-Off Mode. Thank you for listening. Bye-bye.

Ave atque vale,

--Jehan's Muse


End file.
